The invention relates to a bearing arrangement which includes an outer ring and an inner ring which can rotate relative to one another, and rolling bodies, especially balls, which are located between the outer ring and the inner ring. The invention also relates to an infeed distributor and to a suction exhaust device for incorporation in such a bearing arrangement.
Roller bearings of the type mentioned in the introduction are used among other applications for bearings in wind power installations, construction machines or similar devices. In these bearings, a special lubricant supply is often provided to lubricate the rolling bodies. For this purpose, infeed distributors (injectors) are used partially as block distributors with several cells or as individual cell distributors, which are held with a distributor rail. In both variants, the infeed distributors are provided with attachment bores for attachment either to the component to be lubricated or to a holding plate. The lubricant is conveyed from the infeed distributors (injectors) via a lubrication line to the site to be lubricated. This is considered disadvantageous in some application cases because of the construction space required for the infeed distributor. In addition there is the risk a lubrication line may burst, which entails time intensive and labor intensive repair work.
To avoid uncontrolled exit of lubricant from in the bearing arrangements, some plastic bottles are provided, which are screwed into radially oriented ducts to receive exiting lubricant. The regular emptying of these bottles that are sometimes difficult to access is found to be cumbersome. In addition there is the risk of lubricant will exit in an uncontrolled manner from the bearing arrangement if the bottle is not emptied in due time.
The problem of the present invention, in this regard then, is to produce a bearing arrangement of the type mentioned in the introduction, which allows in a particularly space saving and cost saving way the lubrication of, for example, rolling bodies with high operational reliability.